Last week on race night, I noticed how many other boats had crispy, new white sails. They looked beautiful and I could almost hear how crunchy they sounded. Our sails, on the other hand, are old, blown out, mildewy, pitiful and pathetically limp. Man, was I envious!I remember a time when we got new sails every season. To stay competitive in a competitive fleet, it's necessary! At the time, it sometimes felt a bit excessive, but now I fondly remember the days when other boats had sail envy of us. I remember comments from our competition of how crisp and crunchy they sounded when we tacked. Our tacks were fast too, so they really whipped about!
Now, I have a sad suit of sails and results to match. Even worse, a sailing colleague reminded me that we have a lot more to work on in our crewwork. New sails will only help our performance so much! I have to humbly acknowledge how much this rings true.
Still, I can't wait for the new #2 sail to come in! It will feel great to fly it. It won't be embarrasing to flake it when we come back to dock -- it won't be mildewy and stinky and feel all grungy -- for this season, at least. And we will be a bit more competitive, even if only in appearance. Looks count, y'know! It psychs out the competition.
In the meantime, there certainly is a lot our team has to work towards. We need to work on basic boathandling. We need to have everyone know their roles cold, and know where to put themselves physically. We need to work on getting our tacks much faster -- down to 10 seconds. We need to get our spinnaker work working like clockwork. I could go on & on & on...but that's a good start for now. At least our starts are still happenin'!
